A calorie is a calorie is a calorie?

thecazstewart

I've gone from a size 22 to size 12, having worked hard at counting calories and exercising hard since November 2007.

I became lazy at counting last October and gained about 10 pounds which I've been trying so hard to lose, but all I end up doing is losing the same three pounds.

My basic allowance is 1280 calories and I add any exercise calories to this, making sure I eat all but around 100 per day. But it's just not shifting.

The title of this post is that I'm eating what I want to eat, but making sure I weigh everything and log everything, so I know I'm doing it correctly (well, if I'm not doing correctly by now I need shooting!).

But what's causing the slow down? I started logging/weighing again in December and have been resolutely sticking to my guns each and every day. So why aren't my scales reflecting this?

Answers gratefully received!

fteale

I think if you are a repeat dieter your body becomes very efficient at holding onto what it has. I know people who do Atkins find it works brilliant the first time they do it, a bit harder the second, and if you do gain weight a third time, it is very hard to shift it back off that way. It may be that your body is getting used to what you are doing. How are you calculating your exercise cals? I find the MFP calculations to be about a third too high for me, so I actually managed to gain weight over Christmas when I was using it for 2 weeks rather than my HRM to measure how much I was burning.

thecazstewart

I agree the exercise calories shown on this site are on the generous site. I use a Polar RS300X HRM and deduct the background calories. So this isn't the problem :-(